Diplomatic Text
[1]
My dear
As I hoped to have seen you
last night I meant to deliver my own meʃsage
which is to ask you to dine here to morrow
with Mrs Carter & Mr & Mrs Smelt. I must
go out in the afternoon so you will be
quite sure I shall not teize you to stay. do come
if you can. believe me Yrs Affectly
M. Sharpe.
excuse
excuse this dab[2] of paper. my head is not very
well & I cant seek any other. this was just
at hand.
Miʃs Hamilton[3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This and the following six undated notes belong to the period of intimacy between Mary Sharpe, Mrs Carter and Mary Hamilton, ending when Sharpe and Carter fell out, either in mid-April 1782 (see HAM/1/22/43 p.4), or some weeks earlier (see HAM/1/22/42).
2. ‘Applied slightingly to (a) A small or trifling amount, as of money given; (b) a slight effort of the pen, etc.’ (OED s.v. dab n1, 4. Accessed 05-06-2025).
3. The addressee's name appears written upside down and split in two, with two different orientations, by unfolding.
Normalised Text
My dear
As I hoped to have seen you
last night I meant to deliver my own message
which is to ask you to dine here to morrow
with Mrs Carter & Mr & Mrs Smelt. I must
go out in the afternoon so you will be
quite sure I shall not tease you to stay. do come
if you can. believe me Yours Affectionately
Mary Sharpe.
excuse this dab of paper. my head is not very
well & I can't seek any other. this was just
at hand.
Miss Hamilton
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Note from Mary Sharpe (later Beauvoir) to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/22/45
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)
Place sent: to be determined
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: to be determined
Date sent: between March 1779 and April 1782
notBefore March 1779 (precision: high)
notAfter April 1782 (precision: medium)
Letter Description
Summary: Note from Mary Sharpe to Mary Hamilton. An invitation to dine with Sharpe. Other guests will include Mr and Mrs Smelt and Mrs Carter.
Length: 1 sheet, 91 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).
All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.
Acknowledgements: XML version first created without transcription as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1. Transcription added after the funded period under the supervision of David Denison and Nuria Yáñez-Bouza.
Transliterator: Pete Morris, Artificial Intelligence and Ideas Adoption (AIIA), The University of Manchester Library (Plain text transliteration submitted 22 May 2025)
Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library
Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 7 April 2026
